OUTDOORS: Ice lingers on in northeast Pennsylvania

This has been the most remarkable ice-fishing season we’ve had in years.

While the southeast corner was slow to start — and places like Deep Creek Lake and Hopewell Lake never had fishable ice — the Frozen Chozen did find solid sheets on farm ponds and scattered small lakes a tad south of Blue Mountain. Minsi Lake in northern Northampton County was the southeast place to score.

While the ice is gone from the lower mountain locations, there’s still fishable ice in Pennsylvania’s northern latitudes. With continued cold nights, the ice has remained thick across Tioga County, northern Wayne and Pike counties and in the Scranton-Wilkes Barre area. It could, and will, end quickly but, selfishly speaking, I haven’t been able to ice fish across such a large chunk of eastern Pennsylvania during the first and second week of March for many years.

Fortunately this March ice fishing coincides with excellent biological timing. Many of impounded species such as perch, crappie and to a lesser extent bluegill are moving shallow to spawn, though bluegill, a warmwater fish, remain in moderate depths longer.

Earlier this week I went north to Lackawanna State Park, above Scranton, where there was still 10 inches on the 198-acre lake. I’d emailed the park office last Friday, inquiring about up-to-date conditions, and I received a personable reply from park manager, Dustin Drew.

“The ice is still fairly thick, with several fishermen I talked to telling me it is still around 10-inches in most areas they augered,” Drew wrote.

“Augered” — I like that.Drew went on to remind me — and I’ll pass it on to you — that the zone around the Rt. 407 bridge should not be trod on “as the ice underneath it is never considered safe.”

If you want up-to-date ice conditions, Drew is good about posting them on DCNR Lackawanna State Park’s web page. Go to “winter report” for ice thickness. In these last days of fishable ice, the web site can tell you what you need to know. But as Drew reminded me in his email, “It is always recommended and good practice to measure as you go when traveling on the ice.”

Strange but true is the fact that ice actually melts from the bottom up. Certainly on a sunny, warm day you’ll see puddles on the surface but it’s what’s happening on the bottom of the ice sheet that’s critical. At this time of year, with the sun climbing rapidly, you’ll not likely hear the groan and moan of the ice, usually a good thing as it means the ice is expanding, i.e. getting thicker.

In this pre-spring season, the ice you’re on was made weeks ago and isn’t as strong as it was. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission recommends four-inches of ice before venturing forth. That’s fine and dandy when the ice is growing thicker by the moment. But at this time of year, if the ice has melted down to four inches in one place, it’s probably thinner elsewhere.

If you’d like to get in on some late-season ice, my suggestion is try for the panfish — bluegill, pumpkinseeds, crappie and perch. Next to pickerel the four panfish offer the most reliable action now.

At this stage of the ice season, bluegill and their pumpkinseed cousins will not change depths considerably. They’ll move slightly shallower as the ice thins but the difference is hard to discern.

The best thing is this ice period simultaneously occurs with a real lengthening of daylight. This often makes gills and seeds active, or at least interested, throughout the day.

During this March period I still look for bluegills and pumpkinseeds a distance off-shore or in weedy flats in six to 12 feet of water. They were probably in that same zone most of winter but at this time, they’re getting hungrier – and the females are thick with eggs. Certainly the two species are less likely to feel lethargic when their ceiling is thinning, the water is warming and their food is more active.

Perch are one fish that undergoes a considerable seasonal movement as the ice thins. For the most part, yellow perch were hugging deep waters through the core of winter. But with the nearing of spring, perch are on the move to shallower water to spawn. They are the first of the three panfish to do so.

Frankly a lot of luck, or some pretty persistent ice-fishing, is needed to find a gathering cloud of perch. I generally look for them on the outer edge of a weedline in eight to 15 feet of water – at least that’s where they become susceptible.

As a school – with a collective mind — perch are both wary and curious. I find that one lure — one color or one style — catches a handful at best, then I need to switch to something different.

For perch I work everything from one-sixteen ounce jigs adorned with waxworms to quarter ounce spoons sweetened with minnow meat. One technique that perch react to with universal favor is the splatting of the lure on the bottom so that a small puff of marl spreads out. Perch “feed down” and the rising cloud attracts them. Switching lures and striking a soft bottom just outside the weedline is often the key to good perch numbers.

On a sonar unit, when I see fish strung out in a line and hugging the bottom, I initially presume they’re perch. Suspended fish are usually bluegill, crappie or trout.

Unlike perch, crappie “feed up” and are more likely to strike at bait above them (within reason) then one below.

Crappie move to shallower water as the water warms and the ice thins. Anyone who is routinely successful on Peters Cove at Lake Ontelaunee knows all about crappie moving towards the railroad tracks. There’s no fishable ice there now, but the next great game will be anglers out for pre-spawn crappie.

Right now my grapevine reports big crappie are hitting under the ice at Upper Promised Land Lake.